Washington Man Found Guilty In 1987 Killing Of Canadian Couple, Traced By Decades-Old Evidence
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BY ISOLDE RAFTERY, CLARE MCGRANE, PATRICIA MURPHEY & ALEC COWAN / KUOW
This is the first time a suspect was nabbed using the combined powers of DNA and old-school genealogy.
Bill Talbott, a 56-year-old Washington state man, has been found guilty of murdering Tanya van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.
A jury in Everett returned a verdict after two days deliberating over a cold case murder from 1987.
RELATED: Read KUOW’s in-depth story on this case
Tanya van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20, were Canadians from Victoria on an overnight trip to Seattle to pick up furnace parts for Jay’s dad’s company.
They were found brutally murdered, their bodies dumped in Snohomish and Skagit counties.
This was not just a sordid murder case. This was the first time a suspect found using genetic genealogy has been put on trial.
Genetic genealogy pointed investigators to the Golden State Killer in California – charged with 13 murders and countless rapes — which got law enforcement in Washington state considering what that could mean for cold cases here.
Genetic genealogy involves forensic researchers uploading a DNA profile to a public database of DNA profiles, finding a relative, and then perusing that relative’s family tree to identify a suspect.
In this April 11, 2018 photo, Snohomish County Cold Case Detective Jim Scharf, right, shares details of the unsolved case of the 1987 double homicide of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg. CREDIT: Ian Terry/The Herald via AP
After the Golden State Killer was nabbed last year, Washington state law officials saw an opportunity. They uploaded the DNA profile of the mysterious man, dubbed “Individual A,” into a genetic database.
Two second cousins popped up, a genetic genealogist perused his family tree, and within days, Bill Talbott of Monroe, Washington, became suspect number 1.
A DNA test confirmed that Talbott’s semen was found in Tanya and at the scene of the crime.
Talbott could appeal this conviction, but genetic genealogy would not be allowed to be part of this appeal, as the defense did not challenge the veracity of the method used to identify Talbott.
Rather, the defense argued that the semen proves only that Talbott and Tanya had sex. The defense also noted that Tanya’s fluid was in the sample – evidence of arousal.
The prosecution shot back: That was not evidence that she was turned on.
The defense also said that Talbott had rented a room from a cop in the 1990s – no murderer would do that, she said. He had also passed a federal background check. The prosecution side-eyed both of those statements in the rebuttal, drawing chuckles from the gallery.
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